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Margaret Atwood is exchanging her seat in the audience for a spot centre stage in the opening concert of Art of Time’s new season.

The author, a longtime fan of the classical music-pop culture theatrical group, will read her own poetry and that of Griffin International Poetry Prize winner August Kleinzahler Friday and Saturday at Harbourfront.

Her “Thriller Suite” will be accompanied by an original “film noirish” composition by Dan Parr in The Poem/The Song program.

She’s not the least bit concerned about the upcoming performance. Writers must adjust to a wide range of calamities while reading in public places, she says.

“Everything has already happened to me,” says Atwood, recounting the time someone flushed a toilet loudly while she was reading her work in a small bistro.

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“Unless I vomit or die, people will just assume it’s part of the performance,” she laughed, adding that she’s reached the age when people think the things she does are “cute.”

She says she feels safe in the hands of artistic director Andrew Burashko, who founded Art of Time 15 years ago with the mission of bringing classical music to new audiences with performances that mix numerous cultural threads.

“You never know what you are going to get,” says Atwood. One of her favourite shows was the recreation of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds, set in an old-time radio station.

Burashko has arranged for six musicians to perform in various combinations for the event, which begins with Atwood reading unaccompanied “A History of Western Music, Chapter 29” by Kleinzahler. The poem was inspired by the jazz song “I Thought About You” by Johnny Mercer and Jimmy Van Heusen, which is sung next by Gregory Hoskins.

“We are looking at as many representations as possible of how poetry and music intersect,” says Burashko, who plays piano in the concert.

“Apparition,” composed by George Crumb and performed by soprano Carla Huhtanen, was inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem “When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d.”

This is followed by the well-known “Macavity” from CATS by Andrew Lloyd Webber, featuring the poetry of T.S. Eliot. This is sung by Thom Allison, although the part was originally written for a female singer.

“It’s a variety show of sorts,” says Burashko, who commissioned Parr to create music for Atwood’s “Thriller Suite” with the direction that it reflect the sound tracks of Hollywood film noir movies. Parr immersed himself in movies of the ’40s and ’50s such as Cry Danger with Dick Powell and Deadline — U.S.A. with Humphrey Bogart.

He also read the poems over and over for inspiration, trying to create music “that was quite dark. I didn’t want to ruin her poems or spoil them.”

Parr also composed the original music used in the War of the Worlds show, noting that Bernard Herrmann, a favourite of suspense master Alfred Hitchcock, wrote the music for the Welles production.

Parr created a little video to show Atwood when she speaks throughout the long piece of music.

The short poems, which Burashko describes as “very tongue in cheek,” have “the language of a Philip Marlowe type novel,” referring to the tough-talking fictional private eye of Raymond Chandler’s books.

Atwood, who previously read at an Art of Time fundraiser, “is one of a kind. I can’t understand how she does everything she does,” says Burashko.

Atwood has three projects underway: a novel that is coming out next fall, rewriting The Tempest for the Hogarth Shakespeare project and a book that will only be read 100 years from now in the Future Library project.

In the meantime, she’ll be practising her lines from “Thriller Suite.”

http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/whatson/music.cfm?id=5844&festival_id=0The Poem/The SongEND by Art of Time Ensemble is at Harbourfront Centre Theatre Nov. 7 and 8 at 8 p.m. Go to http://www.artoftimeensemble.com/ artoftimeensemble.comEND or call 416-973-4000 for tickets.

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